Tory ex-ministers defend record as pressure mounts after Afghan data leak
Members of the previous administration are distancing themselves from the handling of a breach which saw a defence official release the details of nearly 19,000 people seeking to flee Kabul.
Shadow justice secretary and former immigration minister Robert Jenrick said he first learned of the 2022 data breach after a legal gagging order had been put in place the following year.
Former home secretary Suella Braverman said there is 'much more that needs to be said about the conduct of the MoD (Ministry of Defence), both ministers and officials' and that she was not involved in the superinjunction decision.
Ex-veterans minister Johnny Mercer claimed he had 'receipts' regarding the previous government's actions in relation to Kabul but said it was 'absurd' to accuse him of failing to grasp the scale of the crisis.
'I know who is covering their tracks, and who has the courage to be honest,' he said.
'I would caution those who might attempt to rewrite history.'
Thousands of people are being relocated to the UK as part of an £850 million scheme set up after the leak, which was kept secret as a result of a superinjunction imposed in 2023 which was only lifted on Tuesday.
At Prime Minister's Questions, Sir Keir Starmer insisted there would be scrutiny of the decision, telling MPs: 'Ministers who served under the party opposite have serious questions to answer about how this was ever allowed to happen.'
Former prime minister Liz Truss, who was foreign secretary at the time of the breach in February 2022, but a backbencher when the superinjunction was sought, said she was 'shocked' by the 'cover-up'.
She said the revelations pointed to a 'huge betrayal of public trust' and 'those responsible in both governments and the bureaucracy need to be held to account'.
Mr Mercer said: 'I've spilt my own blood fighting for a better Afghanistan, lost friends, fought to get operators out of the country and away from the Taliban, and visited hundreds of resettled families and hotels in the UK under direct commission from the previous prime minister after the schemes were dangerously failing.
'Others were with me in this process and we have all the receipts.'
Shadow justice secretary Mr Jenrick said he had 'strongly opposed plans to bring over' thousands of Afghan nationals during 'internal government discussions in the short period before my resignation' in December 2023.
'I first learned of the data leak and plan to resettle people after the superinjunction was in place,' he said.
'Parliamentary privilege is not unlimited; I was bound by the Official Secrets Act.'
Mr Jenrick said the secret scheme had been 'a complete disaster' and that the previous government 'made serious mistakes' but that 'thousands more (Afghan people) have come since Labour came to power'.
The Commons Defence Committee will be setting out plans for an inquiry straight after the parliamentary recess in September.
A dataset of 18,714 who applied for the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) scheme was released in February 2022 by a defence official who emailed a file outside authorised government systems.
The Ministry of Defence only became aware of the blunder when excerpts from the dataset were posted anonymously on a Facebook group in August 2023, and a superinjunction was granted at the High Court in an attempt to prevent the Taliban from finding out about the leak.
Then-defence secretary Sir Ben Wallace said he had applied for a four-month standard injunction shortly before leaving office but, on September 1 2023, when Grant Shapps took the role, the government was given a superinjunction.
Mr Shapps has not yet publicly commented on the revelations.
Sir Ben has insisted he makes 'no apology' for applying for the initial injunction, saying it was motivated by the need to protect people in Afghanistan whose safety was at risk.
The leak led to the creation of a secret Afghan relocation scheme – the Afghanistan Response Route – in April 2024.
The scheme is understood to have cost about £400 million so far, with a projected final cost of about £850 million.
A total of about 6,900 people are expected to be relocated by the end of the scheme.
The official responsible for the email error was moved to a new role but not sacked.
The superinjunction was in place for almost two years, covering Labour and Conservative governments.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has apologised on behalf of the Conservatives for the leak, telling LBC: 'On behalf of the government and on behalf of the British people, yes, because somebody made a terrible mistake and names were put out there … and we are sorry for that.'
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